Audio and Video Software Download
SichboPVR

TV tuner software. SichboPVR is a popular TV application that works with most ATSC TV tuner cards and USB sticks, for watching and recording free over-the-air TV on your computer.

Latest version 4.0.17.3 Test – 12/05/2024

SichboPVR for Windows 4.0.17.3 (Testing Build)

Version 4.0.17.3 - 12/05/2024

SichboPVR for Windows (Official Release)

Version 4.0.17.0 - 12/05/2023

SichboPVR for Linux

SichboPVR is available on a few x64 Debian variants. Additional distributions and architectures can be added if there's enough demand.

These are pre-release builds but you're welcome to kick the tyres on them. Stable repositories are set up but no stable builds exist yet — keep an eye out for stable releases in the future. Linux binaries are built from the same code as Windows, but my platform abstraction layer isn't at feature parity yet.

Current limitations:
- Remote controls are not yet added.
- There's no OS media control or system tray integration.
- Dolby Digital bit streaming is not yet implemented.
- 'Run minimized to tray when the OS starts' not yet implemented.

Minimum system requirements:
The client (sichbopvr4)
A GPU that supports OpenGL 3.3 and VAAPI hardware decoding, 1GB video memory, 1GB RAM.
The server (sichbopvr4-service)
Pretty much any PC or VPS/VM instance — it uses very few resources.

How to install.

1. Add the Sichbo Interactive public key.
wget -qO- https://sichbopvr.com/releases/sichbointeractive.asc | gpg --dearmor > sichbointeractive.gpg
sudo install -D -o root -g root -m 644 sichbointeractive.gpg /etc/apt/keyrings/sichbointeractive.gpg
rm -f sichbointeractive.gpg

2. Add the SichboPVR apt repository.

Debian
(MX 21, et al)

Debian 11 (Bullseye)
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/sichbointeractive.gpg] https://sichbopvr.com/releases/debian-11/test bullseye main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sichbopvr-test.list'

Ubuntu
(Mint, Elementary, et al)

Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy)
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/sichbointeractive.gpg] https://sichbopvr.com/releases/ubuntu-22.04/test jammy main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sichbopvr-test.list'

Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal)
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/sichbointeractive.gpg] https://sichbopvr.com/releases/ubuntu-20.04/test focal main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sichbopvr-test.list'

3. Do the usual...
sudo apt update && sudo apt install sichbopvr

Graphical setup.
The experience is identical to Windows. SichboPVR will be added to your programs menu. Just run it and it'll start the background service and scan in channels. You can also configure it to install as a daemon under Setup > Local TV Server.

Command line setup.
For a server setup over SSH, run:
sichbopvr4-service -configure

By default SichboPVR is locked down to localhost and only works with a SichboPVR GUI running on the same machine. The interactive server "-configure" mode will let you easily change the network settings so that it accepts connections from the internet and also set an initial admin password (a user/password is always required for remote connections.) Once set, use a SichboPVR client on Windows or an X11 Linux machine to finish configuring the server.

General Linux nonsense...

Display drivers. They're generally horrible.
The SichboPVR UI can't function at all or will function unreliably in the following configurations:

- Nvidia Nouveau: Is hopelessly broken and will freeze when multiple OpenGL contexts are created (required by some features) and it will not VAAPI decode. You need to disable/blacklist the Nouveau nvidia driver.
- Nvidia Proprietary: Needs vdpau-va-driver installed, it won't actually work because of a missing vaQuerySurfaceAttributes implementation. Somebody has made fixed builds here. H265/HEVC is not generally supported.
- i965 MESA: Everything appears to work okay for some time and then the driver will inexplicably crash on i965_gpe_utils.c#L1730.
- Older graphics cards: Might render garbage because fragment shaders need recent OpenGL shader features.

Disable/blacklist the Nouveau nvidia driver.
$ sudo bash -c "echo blacklist nouveau > /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nvidia-nouveau.conf"
$ sudo bash -c "echo options nouveau modeset=0 >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nvidia-nouveau.conf"
$ sudo update-initramfs -u
$ sudo reboot

Tuner drivers.
Avermedia TD-310
$ sudo modprobe dvb-usb-af9035
$ cd /lib/firmware/
$ sudo wget https://github.com/OpenELEC/dvb-firmware/raw/master/firmware/dvb-demod-si2168-02.fw https://github.com/OpenELEC/dvb-firmware/raw/master/firmware/dvb-usb-it9303-01.fw https://github.com/OpenELEC/dvb-firmware/raw/master/firmware/dvb-demod-si2168-b40-01.fw
Insert the tuner
$ dmesg
Should say "'AVerMedia TD310 DVB-T2' successfully initialized and connected"

More notes to come, probably...